Hello everyone!

How do you feel about good and neutral characters being able to:

1) Raise the dead. The player's handbook explicitly states that this is something only evil mages do

2) Summon fiends.

I don't think it says only evil people raise the dead (as in a raise dead spell -- making someone alive). Resurrection spells were normal play. I think it's talking about raising the dead -- as in making undead creatures.

I think neutrals could summon fiends. IIRC, fiends are more chaotic than evil, but I'm not sure.

I'm sure Hickory will be around shortly to tell you what he thinks. He has a pretty dependable knowledge of D&D.

I'm afraid there was some miscommunication on my part. I meant raise dead as in skeletons and zombies.

Anyone can technically summon fiends. They see mortals as pawns towards their goals and won't deny a mortal's call, regardless of alignment. The thing I have with that is why would they do it? It's a morality issue within the D&D universe. Similar to elves becoming necromancers. As for being more chaotic than evil, that's not really true. The baatezu (like the pit fiend) are lawful evil and combine law and evil equally. Their rivals are the chaotic evil taanari, and when it comes to their alignment they aren't any more or less chaotic than they are evil.

The gate spell should be alignment based IMO (kind of like the find familiar spell).

Animate Dead (not Raise Dead) is an evil necromancy spell. It turns extant corpses into animated skeletons, so yes, only evil spell casters should even consider it -- I will never allow Aerie to memorise it, nor Gate, which is an extraplanar binding spell, which rips a creature from it's abode into your temporary thralldom. Again, an evil act in itself.

Conjuring animals is different, since they are invoked from the aether -- they are not animals that already exist, so any alignment may use them without any compunction.

That may be the case in the pencil and paper game on which this game is based, but the IE computer games are different. The spell creates animated skeletons out of nothing. (Note that it works when there are no dead bodies around.)

It's also worth noting that Gate does not actually make the creature your thrall. The summoned creature acts on its own free will, with the exception that it can not target creatures protected with Protection from Evil. (My understanding is that the Gated demon will actually prefer to attack the caster, if possible.)

If you are looking for a cRPG in which Animate Dead works as you describe, try Pool of Radiance.

The question was about morality, not how close to P&P the game is. The spell is an evil necromancy spell.

I see your point dtgreene. If the skeletons are not actually living creatures, but instead just a moving magical entity that *looks* like a skeleton, it wouldn't be evil.

I think in the game, however, the assumption is that there is something to make skeletons with. I could be wrong, of course. The game tries to simplify the mechanics and then you use your own imagination and/or add additional RP constraints (like Hickory's refusal to allow certain characters to memorize certain spells for RP reasons).

So, I would imagine it all depends on how you yourself see the spell. If it's evil to you (raising the dead), then you are doing something evil to do it. And if it's just a magical entity that looks scary, then you're not so bad.

I wonder if the game itself has something to say about it. Does it say right in the game that it's evil?

Here are my thoughts on the morality of Animate Dead.

In the IE games, I have no problems with it, as the spells create undead out of nothing.

In Pool of Radiance, I have no problem with it, provided the target is a character created by the player. (Of course, I would likely reset before the opportunity came up, because I wouldn't accept a death in that game.) Recruited characters, on the other hand, are another matter; I would consider hiring someone, purposefully letting the character die, and then using Animate Dead on the corpse to be evil.

In the Pencil and Paper game, I would consider it acceptable if the target was willing to be animated (i.e. the person's will specified that). In other cases, however, it might be evil.

Only for the purpose of not making the spell completely useless. The spell itself quite clearly states:

"This spell creates the lowest of the undead monsters: skeletons, usually from the bones of dead humans, demihumans, or humanoids. The spell causes these remains to become animated..."

Which page of the PHB, and which printing?

I don't think the undead/skeletons get created out of nothing in the IE games. I think the idea is that these are ancient lands and so there are dead bodies EVERYWHERE somewhere underground, and, so, summoning one is never an issue. But, I don't know much about all this stuff.

As an interesting note, I can think of two reasons not to have Aerie (in particular) use the spell.

1. (roleplaying reason) Aerie was trained by Quayle, who specializes in illusion magic. (This can be verified with the Ctrl-Q cheat; he's a gnome cleric/illusionist.) For that reason, she was trained with a focus on illusion, and illusion's opposition school is necromancy. (I would still allow her healing magic, because her class does include cleric.) On one partial playthrough, I used this reasoning as justification for giving her the Illusionist kit; if you do this, be aware that this is overall a net gain in power (+1 mage spell per spell level, can't learn mage necromancy).

2. (gameplay reason) Aerie is a multiclass character and therefore levels up more slowly than single class character. This means it takes longer for her to reach level 15, which is when the spell actually becomes useful, and means that if you don't have the expansion installed, she will never reach that level. It's better to give it to someone who levels up faster, like Haer'Dalis, and will therefore reach level 15 much sooner.

Actually, I have done this. In this specific case, Aerie will get the extra mage spells at her next level up. (Not sure if it has to be a mage spell.)

It's the same reason that:
Edwin loses the extra spells per day that he shouldn't have (he apparently comes with *more* than 3 extra spells per level when he should only have 3 extra spells)
Minsk gets the ranger spell he should have had the first time he levels up (in addition to the one for the new level)
Haer-Dalis, if recruited late in Shadows of Amn, gets all the spells per day that he should have after one level up. (Unfortunately, his spellbook is still blank except for spells you've taught him.)

Those two things are evil acts in the D&D lore (if you mean "making unded" for 1). Making undead is said to disrupt the "rest" of the soul even if the specifics are not given.

As for fiends, it's considered a very evil act because the fiends, being themselves very evil, will always try to escape and wreak havock, or twist your orders so they do as much harm as possible. So only a fool or an evil person would ever summon them.

But a neutral character can do those on an exceptional basis, being neutral means you can perform some evil acts as long as you do enough good to "compensate"